Frank Martin’s music for flute
a new addition: Petite complainte
by Rien de Reede
September 2024
When the Genevan Concours international d’exécution musicale commissioned Frank Martin in 1938 to write the compulsory work for flute and piano, it immediately became clear that he was a superb composer for the instrument. Despite the prescribed short length of the piece (ca 8’), he managed to merge lyricism and virtuosity in a most natural manner. The work received the title Ballade, as did a piece for saxophone written shortly before: Martin liked to use this title to underline the narrative aspect of music, and ballades for trombone, cello and piano were to follow.
The Ballade for flute was to become one of the most popular twentieth-century pieces among flautists. Opportunities for performance increased when Martin and subsequently Ernest Ansermet made arrangements for orchestra.
When Maria Martin asked me some sixteen years ago to help sort out a cupboard full of music, we suddenly came across a Ballade for flute and piano. It was unknown to Maria, who as a conservatory student had studied flute with André Pepin in Geneva. It soon appeared that this Ballade, dating from 1938, was an adaptation of the saxophone piece of the same name; it is now published by Universal under the title Deuxième Ballade, and this version too can be performed by an orchestra. Could it be that Martin composed it for the Geneva competition, but that it was considered too long?
With the newly composed Ballade the French-Swiss flautist André Jaunet won first prize at the 1939 competition, and with his pupils Peter-Lukas Graf, Aurèle Nicolet and Günter Rumpel he became one of its prominent champions, as did the duo Maria and Frank Martin. Jaunet was keen to stress in his lessons that the tempos carefully prescribed by the composer should be strictly followed, thus significantly increasing the dramatic development of the important initial musical idea.
The Second Ballade, so unexpectedly discovered in a pile of Martin manuscripts, was performed by Thies Roorda and Nata Tsvereli in December 2008 in an intimate circle at Maria Martin’s home. Such was the enthusiasm of the gathering that she decided to offer it to Universal in Vienna. Roorda and Tsvereli gave the premiere in the Schönberg auditorium of the Royal Conservatory of The Hague on 31 August 2009. Emmanuel Pahud followed directly with masterly CD recordings of both the first and second Ballades in the orchestral and piano versions (Musiques Suisses).
Frank Martin not infrequently had a liberal attitude towards the instruments for which he composed. As a present for Maria Martin, for example, he arranged the Sonata da chiesa for viola d’amore and organ for flute and organ. Similarly, the Chaconne for cello and piano was adapted for violin and piano and his Guitare for piano. It therefore seemed justifiable to make an arrangement for flute of the fragment from his ballet Das Märchen von Aschenbrödel (1941), which the composer had used to provide a sight-reading piece for the oboe. The work was given the title Petite complainte, and it is almost as if Martin had predestined it for the flute, since the expressive qualities of the instrument are almost perfectly exploited. This little piece forms a special enrichment of the flute repertoire and deserves a place alongside the two Ballades. The Zurich publisher Hug now includes it in his catalogue.
Listen to a recording of the version for flute and piano (arr. Rien de Reede, 2024) performed by Thies Roorda, flute and Alessandro Soccorsi, piano (April 2024). More information on Petite complainte in the work list on this website.
Petite complainte for flute and piano is published by Hug Musikverlage.